"She assumed that I did not speak Swedish."

Translation: Hon antog att jag inte talade svenska.

[gokulol]

Why is it "jag inte talade" and not "jag talade inte" here?

[Lundgren8]

In subordinate clauses, the adverb (inte) comes before the verb. It’s a tricky feature of Swedish. Look at these examples:

• Det regnar inte i dag. (It doesn’t rain today.)

• Jag gick ut, eftersom det inte regnade. (I went out, since it didn’t rain.)

• Han kommer alltid. (He always comes.)

• Jag tror att han alltid kommer. (I think that he always comes.)

The subordinate clause can also come first:

• Eftersom bussen ofta är försenad, kommer hon sent till jobbet. (Since the bus is often late, she is late for work.)
• När jag inte jobbar, lagar jag mat. (When I don’t work, I cook.)

Watch out for words like att, eftersom, när, då since they’re often followed by a subordinate clause and pay attention to the word order then.

[gokulol]

Tack så mycket för förklaringen!

[Loujain175965]

But in this case, the verb isn't at the second position in the subordinate clause. Am I right?

[Arnauti]

In main clauses, the rule is that the verb goes second. In subclauses, the rule is that the subject goes before the verb. (plus, as Lundgren8 said, inte also goes before the verb).

[Loujain175965]

Tack så mycket

[HelenCarlsson]

You are :)!

[JavadMousa3]

But these sentences don't seem to be good english for a fixed past tense happening in the same past tense unless you change the second verb to past continous tense

[devalanteriel]

I disagree - these two have very different meanings, but both are valid:

• She assumed that I did not speak Swedish
• She assumed that I was not speaking Swedish

[Julian_bush]

Why is pratade not acceptable

[Tu-Uyen]

Why does it say the correct answer is Hon antog att jag inte kunde svenska? Isn't kunde could rather than talk?

[Arnauti]

The suggested answer is Hon antog att jag inte talade svenska. But all accepted answers can be shown as 'another correct answer' (it tries to match your input to the closest accepted answer).
A closer translation of …att jag inte kunde svenska would be '…that I did not know Swedish'.

[KelvinSoen]

varför "hon förutsätte att jag inte kunde svenska" är fel?

[devalanteriel]

förutsatte is fine but was missing - I've added that now.

[HnL.]

l hope there's a module further down the tree that gives lots of exercises for structures like this. It would be good to learn them well rather than just having one random sentence.

[devalanteriel]

There are more such sentences, but I don't think they're bundled in a specific lesson. Might be a good idea for the future, though.